2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball Hits Gallery and Hot List

With its mix of rarity and lofty price tag, 2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball is one of those products where it can be nice to look at, even if it's out of your price range. Across all sports, the brand has a long history of bringing some truly impressive autograph and memorabilia combinations and this set looks to be no different.

Here's a look at a few live cards that showcase some of the best 2014 National Treasures Baseball has to offer as well as some of the more questionable inclusions.

Collection Cornerstones

As always, 2014 National Treasure Baseball has some museum-quality rarities worthy of being a centerpiece in even the finest collections. Of course, you're not going to find them in every box. But a lucky few are going to find a bat knob, barrel or something similar.

Silhouettes

Over the past few years, Panini has done a good job of developing their Silhouettes-style autographed memorabilia cards. Featuring an autograph along with a generous memorabilia swatch, they make good use of squishing a lot into a small card. The best Silhouettes in National Treasures are the ones that have a patch, but even the single-color swatches aren't too bad.

Rare Birds

Throughout the season, Panini has tried to include memorabilia from old-time players who might not have many -- if any -- relics yet. That continues here.

And even when they're more recent players, there are some nice vintage players collectors don't see everyday.

Nickname Autographs

How do you make a moderately good signature great or a somewhat common autograph a little more unique? Inscriptions. National Treasures includes some simple but fun nickname autographs that have the featured players adding their monicker.

Pretty Patches

Simply put, a nice patch can make a card of even common players great.

Cut Signatures

Cut signatures are pretty common now, at least as far as sets that have them. Done right, they bring signatures for deceased players that aren't easy to come across or are generally too expensive for most collectors. 2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball has done them as book cards that not only have the autograph, but a decent-sized piece of memorabilia as well.

Nice isn't it?

A big limitation of using trading cards to display cut signatures is the size.

Here you've still got a nice design. And while most of Frisch's signature is there save for a couple of squiggles, the visual appeal is way less. There have been lots of cut signature cards much worse than this over the years, but a lot of collectors would likely prefer to see the document saved or used in a different fashion rather than see something like this. Not only does it hurt the card, but too many like this can impact the overall appeal of cut signatures as a whole.

Stickers?

The patch on this David Wright is spectacular. However, except in the most extenuating circumstances, sticker autographs are not something that collectors want to see in a pricey box like National Treasures. While they seem very isolated in 2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball, and not as much as in other sports, they do exist.

Small Single-Color Swatches of Current Players

Classic players get a pass when it comes to having small, single-color memorabilia cards in something ultra high-end. However, it's a letdown to find such cards from current players in a $400+ box -- even when those players are hobby superstars like Derek Jeter and Yasiel Puig.

Here's a gallery of some other impressive 2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball hits that have come from boxes.

2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball Hot List

The following is a real-time list of the most-watched 2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball cards currently up for auction on eBay. The list updates automatically as new cards are listed so feel free to check back.

Ryan Cracknell

E-Mail Author | Ryan is a former member of The Cardboard Connection Writing Staff.
His collecting origins began with winter bike rides to the corner store, tossing a couple of quarters onto the counter and peddling home with a couple packs of O-Pee-Chee hockey in his pocket. Today, he continues to build sets, go after inserts with cool technologies, chase Montreal Expos and finish off his John Jaha master collection.